Rebel Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev conceded the losses of two key villages to Russian forces Wednesday, but said the fight was continuing and denied reports that he had been wounded.


At the same time, a Russian commander in the breakaway republic said the last stage of the war had been completed and dismissed Dudayev as a spent force.


Dudayev, speaking to Itar-Tass by telephone, conceded that the villages of Shatoi and Nozhai-Yurt had fallen to the Russians, but said "the fight is not finished, it is merely taking new forms."


Dudayev rejected reports carried by the same news agency late Tuesday that he had been wounded in the legs and arm during the storming of Shatoi, the last major rebel base in southern Chechnya.


Colonel General Anatoly Kvashnin, one of the Russian commanders in Chechnya, said in Shatoi on Wednesday that "the last phase of the mountain war in Chechnya has been completed," Itar-Tass reported. Kvashnin, who was speaking at a ceremony where the Russian flag was hoisted, said that Dudayev had "disappeared forever from the political scene."


A spokesman for the Russian forces told Interfax that the Chechen fighters had now been split into four groups. One was near the village of Nozhai-Yurt in the south-east of the republic; a second was in the Dargo gorge in the Shatoi region; another group was south of Shatoi; and a final group was in and around the former Soviet missile base at Bamut, the last big village still in rebel hands.


An awkward incident somewhat marred Russian forces' sense of triumph Wednesday. First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets ordered a tightening of discipline amongst Interior Ministry OMON troops, after some of them opened fire on an aid convoy.


Soskovets' press secretary, Yury Mikhailov, said the incident occurred Tuesday, involving a column of trucks belonging to the Emergency Situations Ministry.


In the incident the OMON failed to warn a checkpoint at Chervelennaya-Uzlovaya about trucks travelling from Mozdok. The soldiers at the checkpoint fired warning shots at the convoy. The trucks turned off their headlights, at which point the soldiers believed there were Chechen fighters ahead of them and opened fire. All aid convoys in the area will now be escorted by local Interior Ministry troops, Itar-Tass said.